Leckie will stay in top job, says Stokes

Seven Group Holdings
executive chairman
Kerry Stokes
has dismissed as nonsense speculation that
David Leckie
’s days as head of Seven Media Group are numbered.

Mr Stokes told yesterday’s annual meeting of
West Australian Newspapers
, which he also chairs, that the latest rumour about Mr Leckie was wrong. (Seven Group owns 23.8 per cent of WA Newspapers).

“I’m chairman of [Seven] and no one’s told me about that move," he said.

“There are no plans to change the management at all."

Mr Leckie was hired to run Seven’s TV network in April 2003 – 14 months after the late
Kerry Packer
sacked him as chief executive of Nine Network – and took on a broad role when Seven Media Group was formed after the sale of part of Seven Network’s media assets to American private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in late 2006.

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Mr Leckie was understood to have signed a new three-year contract when Seven Network merged with Mr Stokes’s industrial equipment distribution company, WesTrac, earlier this year to form Seven Group.

The contract expires in April 2013.

WA Newspapers held its annual meeting the day after the release of its September-quarter results, which included a modest 2.6 per cent lift in net profit to $23.5 million and revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation growth that was lower than most analysts expected.

The company’s shares fell 18¢ to $7.05 on Wednesday and dropped another 28¢ to $6.77 yesterday.

On Wednesday, WA Newspapers chief executive
Chris Wharton
told The Australian Financial Review that classified ad revenue in The West Australian was “going very well" and retail advertising was likely to pick up before Christmas.

Yesterday he told shareholders the company had been “bowled a googly" by the threat of a resource super profits tax, which depressed its September-quarter revenue and earnings.

“I think I can now say that the basics for the business are looking pretty good," he said.

“Our classified section is really starting to push on again and that belies some people’s view that there is a structural change [in the newspaper industry] and that classifieds are all going online."

Mr Stokes, who took control of the WAN board in 2008 after a bitter fight with its former directors, was re-elected with a 93.5 per cent “yes" vote.

About 10 per cent of votes were cast against the re-election of Seven Group chief executive Peter Gammell as a WA Newspapers director.

In August Mr Wharton said the company was looking at expanding its regional radio division and had looked at potential acquisitions outside Western Australia.

Yesterday Mr Stokes said the board did not have any specific acquisition targets and had not looked at Fairfax Media, the publisher of the AFR.

“I can tell you that we are not interested in taking over Fairfax," he said. “We wouldn’t see our figure growing bigger in daily print."

Mr Stokes said free online news services from organisations such as the ABC would make it hard for newspapers to charge for online content.